An Epiphany

Christmas ends with Epiphany. There is a mystical “Ah Ha” moment associated with Epiphany and it tends to come from the darkness. Many (if not most) of us have reached some point in life where hope seemed to be lost. The experience is sometimes described as a kind of bottomless black hole. I’ve been there and myself and can testify that there is never enough uplifting news or celebration to lift you from that dark place. What it does take is a total shift in consciousness. When this happens, God and nature actually create order out of what appeared to be chaos. The struggle that I was engaged in was pointless. I awakened one night to the realization that the only thing that really mattered was love. This generated a phone call to my wife, Bonita, who had been waiting for my return to the living. We were reunited. My consciousness radically shifted and my life changed forever. It was the perception change I needed to have the courage to face my inner dragons.

It is love that provides light and overcomes the impossible. Only love will do. Riches, power and fame are transient and turn to dust. The comfort and security we seek cannot be found in any of these. It can only be found in love. Love endures even beyond our lifetime. Everything else is a footnote.

It seems that we are in some kind of wrestling match with life. There is this tremendous struggle to conquer and win. If we could begin to devote only a fraction of that effort and energy to loving God, our neighbor and ourselves it would change the world. Imagine instead of criticizing, picking out the negative and trying to control everything and everybody that we exercised the power of love by listening, empathizing and offering support. What a difference it would make! Outcomes and bottom lines would become irrelevant.

Today is the feast day of Epiphany. Let go of the worry, hurry and hate. Reflect the love that shines inside of you and be an instrument of that love regardless of your circumstances. This is the true awakening for which you have been waiting. Nothing else matters. So let go of control and let your love light shine. If you persist in it nothing will ever be the same.

Epiphany

Today is the celebration of Epiphany.  It is a time of wonder in which a new birth of the world envisioned by the Magi, named Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar was manifested in their visit to Bethlehem.  They found the baby Jesus with his parents.  It is the end of the Christmas season.  The Roman Catholic Church blesses homes and churches by marking the initials of the Magi over their doors using the first letters of each of the Magi’s names, CMB.  These initials also connote the Latin phrase Christus mansionem benedicat, which means "may Christ bless the house".  The celebrations around the world are rich in tradition and vary from country to country.  Christmas decorations come down in most places and Three Kings Cake is eaten.  People dress as the wise men, there are parades and wonderful feasts.  The common thread among them is the realization that something wonderful has happened and is happening as forseen in a mutual vision by three people at the same time in different parts of the world more than two millennia ago.  They all had an epiphany.

There was a gathering of individuals at a meeting in our treatment center the other night.  The topic of the session was “a moment of clarity”.  Everyone in attendance had suffered serious, life threatening, addictions.  Their lives had been deteriorating for years and nothing seemed to stop the downward spiral that was taking them from their families, friends and everything that was important to them.  Then something incredible happened to each and every one in the group.  Everything changed.  There was one incredible moment of clarity that pointed them in a differenet direction.  Treatment options were explored and the journey of recovery began.  Nothing else would have changed the progression of the disease.  There was a sudden spiritual awakening that re-made their worlds.  They had an epiphany.

These magnificent sudden realizations allow us to find the missing piece of life’s puzzle.  We are given the opportunity to step back and somehow see the big picture.  Everything becomes clear.  Quantum leaps in science, literature, technology and religion have been made because of such moments.  We shout “I have found it!” and move on to use the epiphany as a point of reference for the rest of our lives.  We all have little epiphanies throughout our lives.  Some of us have earth shattering ones.  It is no matter whether they are big or small.  They have the power to transform us.  All we must do is be open to the moment and to be patient with the process.  God speaks to us when we are quiet.  Listen.

Epiphany

The manifestation of a new world order is celebrated at Epiphany.  It is the Twelfth Night or the Twelfth Day of Christmas.  Epiphany has been a greater and smaller holiday over the centuries.  Mardi Gras season officially starts in many places.  The message, however, is most meaningful.  The treasures that we have been seeking and waiting for are present in the very place where we are right now.  It is found by living in this moment to the fullest.  It is accompanied by the return of a sense of wonder.  How could we have missed it in the first place?

We will find the revelation by showing up.  Three Wise Men did.  Showing up means not only to be present to the day, hour and minute.  This is important enough.  It also means to bring something with us.  We are asked to show up with light, humility and with our personal gifts.  We must be willing to set aside self will in deference to the importance of the here and now.  It is time to allow healing and fellowship rather than drive and determination.  The result is a greater ability to love and an absence of intolerance.  We are no longer better or more important than others.  Beauty and appreciation find a way of flowing into our lives.  There it is.  An Epiphany.

Listening For An Awakening

Most of us long for a "new awakening" in out lives, a transformation from who we are to who we dream of being. But what kind of action is needed in order to achieve such change? There are so many self improvement books and articles on the subject that one could almost spend a lifetime reading and studying. The list of seminars and speakers, internet blogs and sites go on and on. The truth is that these epiphanies are elusive. They seem to come to people at unlikely times.

Bill Wilson, a co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, was incarcerated for the fourth time at Manhattan's Towns Hospital in 1934. He tells of a spiritual awakening, a flash of white light, a liberating awareness of God. This experience led to the founding of AA and the gift of 12 Step Recovery. He was sedated, detoxified and hopeless. Bill prayed, "If there be a God, will He show himself?" He said this of his life altering experience. The result was instant, electric, beyond description. The place seemed to light up, blinding white. I knew only ecstasy and seemed on a mountain. A great wind blew, enveloping and penetrating me. To me, it was not of air, but of Spirit. Blazing, there came the tremendous thought. 'You are a free man.' Then the ecstasy subsided. I found myself in a new world of consciousness which was suffused by a Presence. One with the Universe, a great peace stole over me."

Thomas Merton, the great writer and spiritual mentor, was at a point of complete disillusionment and on the way to a dentist appointment in Louisville, Kentucky. He was on the corner of Walnut and 4th Street when he was overcome with a new awareness. He wrote, "Yesterday, in Louisville, at the corner of 4th and Walnut, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream. Not that I question the reality of my vocation, or of my monastic life: but the conception of "separation from the world" that we have in the monastery too easily presents itself as a complete illusion. I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun." Merton went on to be a voice of peace and social justice. His life and work were never the same. Countless people were and are influenced by his transformation.

There are many other similar stories. A common thread seems to be that a person must be in a position in which there is a desperate need to listen. Karl Menninger describes this listening as a force that creates us, unfolds us and expands us. The process is difficult. We are always ready to respond. Always ready to give advice. Always ready to talk. The idea of being quiet is foreign to us. But this is, indeed, what it takes to be a vessel for a new awakening. Active listening and reflection are a discipline that can be developed or it can be thrust upon us as it was for Bill Wilson and Thomas Merton.

We must listen for our new awakening, our personal epiphany. How can I become a quiet listener?